Amphithéâtre Sud Bat. Jean Roget Domain De La Merci La Tronche

SEMINAR of Prof. Masato YASUI

Japan, KEIO Univ. School of Medicine Vice Dean, MD, PhD
department of Pharmacology

MONDAY 23 OCTOBER 2017

14h30-16h00

Amphithéâtre sud Bat. Jean Roget
Domain de la Merci – La Tronche

Overview of KEIO Univ. School of Medicine
& current activities of Prof. Yasui : Water biology: roles of Aquaporines (AQP)

Introduction of KEIO Univ. School of Medicine
Keio University School of Medicine (Keio) was founded in 1917 by renowned

Physician and microbiologist, ShibasaburoKitasato.

Since then, Keio has been playing a leading role in promoting medical science as well as state-of-the-art clinical practice based on the principle that basic research and clinical medicine go hand-in-hand.

At Keio, we aim to train young physician scientists to be global leaders. Keio’s global network allows us to provide many kinds of international programs, such as a joint summer school with KarolinskaInstitutet, Kings College London, and Peking University; and an overseas clinical elective program at institutions in the US, EU countries, Australia, and Canada, among others.

The Keio Medical Science Prize was established in 1996 to promote medical sciences. As of 2016, seven recipients of Keio Medical Science Prize have gone on to become Nobel Laureates, indicating the prestige of Keio Medicine.

As we celebrate our centenary, Keio will continue to play a leading role in addressing not only domestic but global problems such as rapidly ageing populations by applying advanced technologies, e.g. iPS cell based regenerative medicine and brain science using genetically modified non-human primates ; as well as patients-oriented medical cluster approaches in fields such as clinical oncology. A new hospital building is now under construction, which will facilitate our unique cluster approach to patients and promote the interaction between basic medical science and clinical medicine.

Water Biology: roles of aquaporins (AQP)

Water constitutes roughly 70% of the mass of our body. Water metabolism is one of the most important homeostatic functions. There is a dynamic and precise regulation for water balance in our body; secretion such as tears or saliva and absorption in digestive tracts or kidney. Disturbance in water balance can be seen in many clinical disorders from dry syndromes to brain edema. The discovery of the water channel aquaporin (AQP) greatly expanded our understanding of the regulation of the water permeability of biological membranes.

We have introduced a couple of new technologies in order to understand further water dynamics and biological relevance of AQP in the living system. A nonlinear optical microscopy technique, the coherent anti-stokes Raman scattering (CARS) imaging, has been applied to directly and quantitatively imaging water transport through cell membranes. We introduce “Aquaphotomics” approach to access water dynamics of the cells as well as AQP functions. Molecular dynamics simulation is also used to evaluate our experimental findings. Taken together, we try to understand life science better by focusing on water molecule behaviors; how water molecules contribute to the complex of life phenomenon, especially self-organization under non-linear open system.